The Mists of Ravenloft

Session 15

The Light shall always defeat the darkness

26

NOV/16

So we rested up in Mordenkainens hidden sanctuary after fixing whatever Strahd did to him. We agreed to help him get revenge on Strahd if he helped us with defeating Strahd, he was also interested in our Prophecies from Madam Eva which we couldn’t remember exactly so he also asked us to go find her and get her to repeat her prophecies to us, so he could know and help us work out anything important in them. I also asked him to help me identify exactly what the sword ‘Wolfs Eater’ was and did. Mordenkainen told me that it was a sword particularily good against Lycanthropes, but not against actual wolves as the name implied and that it needed to be bathed in blood each day or i would not be able to sleep well that night. With that information, I rebonded to it and we set prepared ourselves to leave. Mordenkainen teleported us close to the Wizards of Wine so we could check up on and pick up Ireena. She was well and the Were Ravens had looked after her. But Aldryns horse was back to being skeletal which worried us about what the crazed angel had actually done to the Mayors son he had brought back………… But we put that away for now, trying to chase after too many things meant we were less effective, as we headed out to go deal with the Druid problem and get the special ‘wine gem’ they had stolen back a letter was dropped off to us from Strahd, it was an invitation to dinner at his Castle with a promise of no trouble along the way and that he was expecting us and looking forward to it, in the end a majority of us voted to ignore it for now and do some other tasks first to prepare ourselves before walking into the obvious trap.

As we headed towards the druids we were beset upon by packs of wolves and they wouldn’t stop we all kind of guessed that this was Strahds way of telling us to go to his castle and see him and to stop being rude and ignoring his invitation but at this point we all decided to go fuck him, We as holy knights had a job to do and we were going to do it, so we continued forward slaying the wolves to the last. Also along this journey we came across some sort of horrible Vampire Trees that had a victim inside them to nourish them and when you killed or injured them the person inside would also suffer that fate and their seemed to be no way around it, it was a harrowing experience and one that i am not likely to ever truly get over.

Arriving at the hill where the druids lived we decided to quickly rest and recover ourselves before assaulting their camp. As we rested Amoret seemed to be distracted by something and as we prepared to head out she was like guys there is something nearby that is calling out to me, so Amoret, myself and Naythe decided to go scout out the area while Aldryn waited with Ireena (Solheil was still with Mordenkainen, apparently he wanted to talk to him about something). As we scouted we followed Amoret who was apparently still following this voice to a weapon that could possibly help us, but as we approached the main hill we saw this tree with more of those vampire trees around it with a rather interesting axe embedded in its trunk and we saw the druids around something else apparently performing some form of ritual with the gem we had come to recover, and as we prepared to go back and get Aldryn we saw him………. the Lord of This Domain the Devil Strahd riding up towards the Druids on his fiery hell steed, they exchanged words and with not much else we could do at that time the druids finished their ritual and summoned this colossal Tree monster that was like a ‘dead’ Treant and it started lumbering off down the road we had been traveling on to get here. I guessed where it was going immediately and I said we needed to stop it, and as we snuck off back to grab Aldryn, Strahd seemed to be distracted back where he was staring off into this wall of mist that was covering the land and I swore I could just see the outlines of a city in the mists. We grabbed Aldryn and raced off after the ‘Tree’ thing, it was MASSIVE and ad we got closer Aldryn decided to throw a Javelin at it, as it seemed to somewhat feel this spiky thing land in it, it went off the road and into the trees and thats where we lost it briefly but that was enough for it to surprise us and battle ensued its roots caught us up and made it difficult for us to move on the ground but luckily Aldryn was able to get right up next to it and start slashing at it with Solair, and Amoret shot arrows at it and Naythe got beat up by it while buffing and supporting Amoret and Aldryn…….. and I was able to stay at enough of a distance to fire my Eldritch blasts at it. And as we summoned the last remaining vestiges of our strength something happened Solair seemed to cut through a chunk of this things trunk and it exposed the gem at the centre of it the thing that was powering it and as that happened I saw us all, doing our best to fight this thing so that no one else would be harmed or killed by it and as Naythe fell his body beaten and almost broken by this monstrosity, it clicked inside me the powers that i had left unused for several years because of my fear of judgement and hatred from the church that was irrelevant, I have these powers and regardless of what anyone thinks of me because of them I know that I serve Lathander and even if no one else forgives me for what I have done in my past life he has and he embraces and loves me like a son even if the rest of the church would think I am a monster. With that realisation i simply smiled and faded back into the shadows and then as I circled around the tree I surged forward and managed to pry the gem free from its chest and as I did so it stopped and collapsed. And as I landed and clutched the gem in victory I looked around at all my friends and at what we had achieved as a team; Strahd had better watch out because if he wants to be the monster and play with peoples lives, he will learn that not all monsters serve the forces of darkness, some of the scariest ones actually serve the light……..

As we took stock and recovered ourselves we looked around and a chilling realisation came to us Amoret and Ireena where missing…….